How does a church move forward? I’ve been a part of churches that take a strong development stance – always rethinking goals and structures, open to new ideas and directions. I’ve also been a part of churches that hunker down in maintainance – repeating tried and true preaching, connections opportunities, and small groups.
I use to dismiss maintainance in favor of development. “If you’re not growing your dying,” I’d say with pride. Leadership, to me, seemed to require new developments.
I’m not dismissing development as the way forward, but I am becoming aware of the movement that can be significantly derived from maintainance. There a some standard functions for every church; or as Rick Warren would say, purposes such as worship, fellowship, discipleship, service, and evangelism. A church with a set of ministries addressing these may not need development, as much as they would tweaks along the way.
1 response so far ↓
Matt Erickson // October 22, 2009 at 12:15 pm |
Brian, I think you are touching on some very important points here. There is a tension between what you call maintenance models and development models in church. However, I think this is always at play in every church.
Clearly, there are some things within church that should never change, as you mentioned things like worship, fellowship, evangelism, discipleship.
At the same time, we need to keep these basics or foundational aspects constantly renewed.
If we cement the foundational aspects of church life as unchanging in their form, then we are well on our way to death.
If we turn those foundational aspects into a wash of sandy clay, there is no constancy and we can easily become confused and infatuated with novelty.
The questions as I see it isn’t whether we are one or the other – maintenance or developmental – but whether we are creatively renewing the foundational aspects of life in the church for ever changing times and settings.